Unscripted Joss Byrd (5 page)

“Whaaat?” I ask. How can I learn the actual lines when I can't even understand this much?

“Don't get frustrated. We haven't even read it through yet.”

“But this scene is supposed to be snappy. The boys talk so fast, and I'm used to the old version.” I hold my head. I can practically hear Jericho mocking me again:
Joss Byrd
.

“Okay, take a breather.” Damon sits quietly and lets me mope. After a few minutes, he opens his laptop and taps the keys. “Maybe we should take a step back and explore our options, okay?”

“Yes,
please
,” I beg.

When I look outside, I see that the surfer kids have gone, but there's a woman in a baseball cap and surf shorts pacing and talking on her phone. Something about her square face and her tight lips looks familiar. Maybe she just reminds me of someone on TV. She must be stressed. I can tell by the way she's holding her neck and trying to get the kinks out. She's probably a surfer. We probably ruined her day off. Whatever her problem is, she should get over it because I bet I'm having a worse day than she is.

“Acting class … acting class…” Damon types the search words and then scans through the videos. “Donna Joy Carena's School of Acting … Acting Class for Beginners … Acting Class Fails…”

“Donna Joy Carena, let's see what you've got.” Damon hits play.

Donna Joy has dandelions in her hair and bare feet. Her face is eighty but her frilly dress is for someone who's eight. “Imagine becoming your favorite flower. You're stretching, you're opening and opening and opening up toward the sun…” Donna Joy Carena stretches both arms toward the sky.

“No way,” I say. “I'm not being my favorite flower.”

“Agreed.” Damon scrolls down the choices. He clicks on one video of a girl standing on a chair holding a script. The girl delivers one line and loses her balance. The chair tips, she falls onto the stage then slides into the orchestra pit. Damon laughs. “Sorry. Not what we're looking for … pretty funny, though.”

This is a slippery slope. Me and Viva can watch videos of fat cats in sinks or tours of celebrity dream closets for hours and hours. We'll start after lunch on a Sunday afternoon and the next thing we know it's dark and time for dinner.

Damon clicks the arrow to the next page. “Yale Drama School?”

Yale sounds hard. “Nah.”

“Meryl Streep went there.”

I can't remember who that is.

“No. You're right. Too snooty. I went to Fordham. Much more down-to-earth.”

Fordham sounds hard, too. I knew Damon was smart.

“You should've taught regular school,” I say. He would've been happier teaching all those subjects to smart kids.

“I will, eventually,” he says, scrolling down the screen. “But I thought this'd be a good adventure.” Damon stops at a video called “Nailing the Scene with Vern LaVeque.” He looks at me hopefully. “Vern LaVeque? That name sounds like he knows what he's talking about, right?”

“I guess.” We are the blind leading the blind, as Terrance says when his crew can't seem to get their act together.

At the same time, me and Damon check the clock on the microwave. Two hours to go until lunch.

“Uh … we can skip part one, right?” Damon says. “You've already been in real movies.”

“Okay.”

He presses play for part two.

In front of a cheesy hand-painted mural of the ocean stands Vern LaVeque in a too-tight black T-shirt and an orange tan.

“So, the key to everything I've been saying is that the lines are not what matter in a scene!” Vern LaVeque raises his arms above his students. “Let go of the lines. And let go of the fear!”

I sit taller and lean toward the screen. I thought I was the only one who felt any fear.

“The key to an effective scene is not reading! It is NOT READING! It's LISTENING!”

“Score.” Damon turns over a piece of paper and picks up a pencil.

“So you better believe me when I say this because it is the plain truth. If you can listen”—Vern LaVeque points to his ears. Then he points to his body—“then you can act!”

Me and Damon smile at each other.

“You're a good listener, aren't you?” Damon asks.

“I listen all the time,” I say. Even when I don't want to hear stuff, like Viva calling this shoot a potential colossal embarrassment, I'm still listening.

On his paper, Damon writes:

READING
→
LISTENING.

Vern LaVeque struts across the carpeted stage and points to his students. The veins on his arms rise as he flexes. “You know the words. You've been up to here with the words!” He holds his hand to his forehead.

“Tell me about it,” I say.

“So I want you to throw that script aside!” Vern LaVeque flings a script off his stool. The pages flap in the air and land on the floor like a lame bird. “You've gone over the lines inside and out. Trust that they're in here.” He points to his head. “Trust that you have them and focus on your partner. I want you to listen to your scene partner. Listen to him so carefully that you hear every word and every breath.”

I think about Chris. When he's excited his voice crackles at the end of his sentences, and when he's upset he sighs real loudly before he speaks. I like listening to Chris.

“Listen to your partner, and allow his words to trigger your heart, your character's heart.” Vern LaVeque clutches his chest dramatically. “Tap into your character's emotions and use them.”

LISTEN
→
HEART
, Damon writes.

I'm good with emotions. The
Hollywood Reporter
called me “fiercely emotional.” They said I had “complete conviction.” And Chris, if I'm being honest, already triggers my heart.

“I'm tapped into my emotions,” I say softly.

“Yeah, you are!” Damon grins at me.

On the screen, Vern LaVeque looks into the camera like he's talking straight to me. “Feel like your character. And allow your heart to trigger the right words.”

“Does that make sense to you?” Damon asks.

“I should listen closely to the boys. Then I'll feel how Norah would feel. And my heart will remind me what my line is,” I say. “So it doesn't matter if the dialogue is in a different order!”

“You got it. That's exactly what he's saying.” Damon and I high-five.

“So, what's the secret?” Vern LaVeque asks.

“Listening!” his students answer.

“Listening,” I repeat in my full voice.

“That's right. LISTEN! Listen to your partner.” He points to people in the class. “Listen to what is happening around you. Listen and feel and react. Because acting is
re
acting.”

LISTEN
→
FEEL
→
REACT
, Damon writes.

“Reacting!” I shout. “Acting is
re
acting!”

Vern LaVeque points from student to student. He stops, holds his chest, and lowers his head. “LISTEN to your character's HEART, and the words will come.”

“Listen to Norah's heart…” I close my eyes as if I'm praying. In a way, I am praying for this to work. “… and the words will come.”

“That, my friends,” Vern LaVeque says, “is what nailing the scene is about.”

“Please work. Please, please, please work.” I point from my ears to my heart to my mouth.

 

4

If the locals hate us for taking over their “temple,” they probably can't stand that we eat lunch in their real church basement. Whenever we're down here I never remember we're even in a church. There're the usual statues: Mary in a half shell and Joseph (I think) and apostles (I've seen Jesus movies at Easter time). But none of us pay any attention because we're too hungry to feel holy. I've only felt holy once. Viva took me to church when her friend's baby got baptized. Even when the babies started to cry I couldn't believe how peaceful it was in there. I wouldn't mind going to church again, just to be able to sit with my mother for an hour in quiet.

Our caterers, Lights, Catering, Action!, cook up all of our food inside their catering truck. Then they set up a buffet lunch as if we're at a wedding or something. The chef gets lots of complaints about too much salt or overcooked this or undercooked that. But I don't know what all the moaning is about because at home a home-cooked meal is fish sticks and toast with ketchup packets we collect from McDonald's. Here the buffet's got a beef station, a seafood station, cold pasta, hot pasta, four salads to choose from, a dozen dressings, chicken and mushrooms, roasted vegetables, paella, and something that looks like beef stew but isn't, but I'm sure it's good, too. If you ask me, the food truck is the greatest thing Hollywood ever created, besides
Paper Moon
. Seriously, how does all of
this
come out of
that
?

I don't get how so many actresses can be anorexic, especially when catering has a ravioli station on Fridays: there's cheese ravioli, mushroom ravioli, and lobster ravioli with a choice of sauces. What I get is marinara on the cheese ravioli, cream on the mushroom ravioli, and butter and garlic on the lobster ravioli. But that's on Fridays. Today is a rice pudding day. Finally, something's going my way. Rice pudding is a universal favorite. The strategy is to take your share of pudding before you line up for the real food because if you wait until after, there might not be any left.

“Joss!” Chris calls my name and rushes up behind me as I'm loading three little pudding cups on my tray. Why don't they just put the pudding in bigger cups? “I gotta talk to you,” he says, no nonsense.

“I'll know the lines after lunch, okay?” I slice him like a paper cut. “Don't I
always
know the lines when we shoot?”

“What?” He crinkles his forehead. “No, no. It's not about that. I don't care about that,” he says, taking four pudding cups for himself.

If this isn't about rehearsal, I don't know what it could be. I shouldn't have been so rude. I'm still touchy about the script, that's all.

“Ah! Rice pudding day!” Terrance calls from the back of the line. “No hoarding, ladies and gentlemen! One per customer!” he jokes, pointing at Chris. “I see you, Christopher Tate! That is a direct violation of catering code 421, section B!”

“Just get your food, and sit with me out back, okay?” Chris says, walking toward the back door.

“Okay.” I try not to look surprised, but I am. We never eat together, just the two of us. Sometimes Chris eats with Jericho, to talk about how to get to the next level on a video game or to quote some TV show I've never heard of.

I thought it'd be easy to make friends with other kids who act. But it isn't, not when they think I'm Miss Thing when I'm not. When we got to Long Island, Chris asked if I wanted to go to Splish-Splash water park with him and Jericho. I wanted to go so bad. They were all excited about the Giant Twister—three slides that twist through the trees and end up in one pool. The three of us could've gone down at the same time. But, like a complete snob, I told them I didn't want to go because water parks are where you get pink eye and foot fungus. How could I tell Chris that I had to stay in to memorize lines because I'm dense? I couldn't.

*   *   *

Jericho and Chris barrel into my schoolroom at our Brooklyn studio. They thump their heavy backpacks onto the table where I'm showing Damon this year's textbooks. Soon enough Damon will find out that books are not my claim to fame.

“Ding, ding! School's in!” Jericho says.

“Whoa, wait a second, guys!” Damon holds up a hand. “This isn't school for you.”

I'm supposed to tutor alone. Viva told the producer that she wants me to have the best possible education. But really, me and my mother just don't want anyone to find out how slow I am.

“But Benji sent us,” Chris says. “We're supposed to start tutoring today.”

“It says school on the door!” Jericho points at the sign.

“Sorry. Not with me. You two have another teacher,” Damon says. “I only have Joss.”

“Your schoolroom is at the end of the hallway,” I add. “The door says
TJ & BUZZ'S SCHOOL.
”

“Oh…” Chris says. “Okay.” He and Jericho pick up their things and leave.

It would be so cool if I could tutor with them. It's boring to do school alone day after day. But I don't want them to know my problems any more than Viva does.

“Why does she get her own private tutor?” I hear Jericho ask as they shuffle down the hall.

“I don't know,” Chris says. “Probably because she's a big deal.”

*   *   *

“Hey, sit here.” Chris says, meaning with him on the back steps.

I might be blushing. I know it's messed up to blush over a boy who's supposed to be my brother, but usually when I'm alone with Chris we're playing Norah and TJ. When I'm not acting, I can't help it.

We set our trays between us, and I wait for Chris to speak.

“Man, that rehearsal…” He rubs his dirty forehead. “I practiced the fight with Rodney.”

I listen quietly and watch some bees buzzing over a garbage can.

“The stunt coordinator showed Rodney how to smack me and shove me and yell in my face,” he says, shoulders slumped.

For once I'm grateful to my mother. No yelling in my face or smacking or shoving for me. Chris has it tough. The movie wouldn't work without rough scenes between him and Rodney. There's no way around violent content for Chris.